When Fire Meets Fate

Chapter Text

The few days were up and I followed Abby down into the bunker. Dani, Indra, Octavia, and Clarke followed us, all silent. The bunker, itself, was silent. There were no voices, no hums of electricity, or random bangs from pipes. It was if the world waited with bated breath to see if Nyx would come back to us.

When we reached the door, Abby’s assistants were already standing by as were ten guards with tranq rifles loosely aimed at the door. We stood back as the door was opened and they entered the room. After what seemed like forever, they left pushing equipment in front of them and closed the door behind them.

Abby walked over to us and said, “She should be waking soon. I don’t know how she’ll react, but be prepared for anything.”

“Thanks, Abby,” I replied.

She gave me a hug and I squared my shoulders and walked up to the door. I peaked inside through the small window in the door and I felt tears spring up in my eyes. She looked so deflated, not an ounce of her strength or spirit showed.

I turned to look at everyone and said, “I thinking Indra and I should be the only ones to go in. It would be a bad idea if we all stepped in, crowding her.”

“I agree,” Indra replied and everyone nodded.

Clarke stood at the fringe of the small group and I could see how tense she held herself and the fear that wafted from her.

“Clarke, if this is too much,” I said, keeping my voice calm, “you can leave and we’d think nothing less of you.”

She shook her head and replied, “No. I need to be here. She needs to know that I’m here for her.”

“Okay, just keep your distance please. We can’t lose you.”

She nodded and I turned back to the door. I took one last look and walked through the door with Indra following me. We stayed near the door and crouched so that we would be at her level. After about five, ten minutes of waiting, she started to stir. We held ourselves completely still as she rolled over onto her belly.

She shook her head and rubbed it with her paw, trying to dislodge the disc. She mad a noise in irritation and got up on shaky legs and proceeded to rub her head against the floor in an attempt to get rid of it.

I took a deep breath and sent a prayer before I said, “Nyx?”

Her head snapped around and she bared her teeth. The good news was that she didn’t immediately attack. I put my hands in front of me, showing that I meant no harm.

“Nyx, it’s okay. It’s just me and Indra. We’re not here to hurt you, we just want to talk, okay.”

She stood stock still, growling low.

“Nyx,” Indra said drawing her attention. “We need you to listen to us. If you stay like this, you’re going to go full wolf. None of us want to see that happen, Nyx.”

“We know that you didn’t mean to do it. That you didn’t mean to hurt Clarke, but she’s okay. She’s right outside the door waiting for you. She wants you back, Sis.”

At the sound of Clarke’s name, she stopped growling and started whimpering. Her body language betrayed the pain and sorrow she felt.

“Nyx, you need to talk to us or at least shift back. We can’t help you otherwise and we want to help you. You’re our family and we always look after family, right?”

She shook her head, making us sigh. A thought occurred to me and I decided to roll with it.

“So, you know our asshole friend, right? Well, Indra tore him a new one as soon as she got here.”

Indra smiled fondly and said, “I’d like to think I lit a fire under his ass. I told him that in no uncertain terms was he allowed anywhere near responsibility. I gave him the worst possible punishment I could think of. Standing 16 hour shifts guarding that one guy in jail. What was his name?”

“Jaha,” I supplied.

“Right. Jaha. That’s all he’s allowed to do. He’s been demoted and he’s back at being the lowest man on the totem pole. I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything worse then that, Nyx.”

“Oh, and there’s this awesome thing that happened a few days ago,” I said with a smile. “So, asshole has been making rounds apologizing to everyone on the Council and I mean everyone. The only thing that has done has made them dislike him even more, cuz he keeps sticking his foot deeper down his throat. Anyway, the other day he comes across Clarke. He starts in on his usual spiel about how sorry he was about doing it, blah, blah, blah. Then he goes ‘I didn’t know this would happen.’ And Clarke’s like ‘duh, she hasn’t been around in 8 yrs and you don’t know what she’s been through.’ He’s like, ‘I was in the hospital recovering when she was banished.’ Oh, that really started to tick her off. She calls him callous, btw I think that’s her favorite word at the moment, and that he was angry. He admits that he was angry and tries to lay on the guilt, you know garner sympathy. She was not having it, no sir, and now she’s real mad by this time. She tells him that he only wanted to make her feel what he had felt and that in the process shit turned ugly. Tells him that because he was rude, callous, see there’s that word again, inconsiderate, asshole, forced us into this current situation. By the time she gets to the end, she’s shooting lightning at his feet making him jump back to get her point across. The the piece de resistance, she told him that if it would bring you back, she’d kill him. Straight up, Sis. No lie. She’d kill him for you.”

I looked over at her after I’d finish my story and saw that she had sat down with her head cocked to the side, listening.

“When Dani and I heard what she’d done,” I said, still smiling, “we could not stop laughing our asses off. We hated that we weren’t there for the fireworks and there were fireworks. She did you proud, you know. She made us all proud of how she stood up to him. Oh, and Dani and I started baiting each other again. We ended up dragging Octavia into it. I think we damaged the back training arena. Oops.”

She scratched behind her ear in irritation and looked at me balefully.

“Oh, right, that,” I said apologetically. “I don’t know if you remember, but you tried to get loose. You blew the door to your other room open and damaged the bunker on your way out. When we got you back here, Ben and Raven came up with a disc that would prevent you from using your powers. That’s that thing you keep trying to take off. The only thing it allows you is low level telepathy so that you can talk to us and the ability to shift. We had to do it to keep everyone safe. The plus side to that fiasco is that we don’t have to hide our abilities from the humans anymore.”

She had a hang dog expression and Indra said, “I know you’re sorry about that, Nyx, but it inspired Clarke to find a way to educate the humans about what happened on the surface when they went into the bunker 83 years ago. The classes start this afternoon. Now, listen to me, Nyx. We can see that you’ve come out of that hellhole he put you in. I need you to do us a favor, okay? It’s really important. I need you to shift. I need you to shift so that we don’t lose you. Can you do that for me? For us?”

She looked at the two of us and shook her head. She then got up and walked to a corner where she sat down and faced the corner.

“Well, that’s a no,” I said sighing. “Nyx, will you at least talk to us?”

Her only answer was to place her head directly into the corner, nose pointing downward.

Indra got up and stretched her legs, “I think that’s all we’re going to get out of her today, Persephone.”

I got up and did the same. I looked at her and felt a single tear slide down my face. I absently wiped the tear away and then looked at Indra. She had the same look of sorrow that I felt.

“Come on, let’s go,” I said and left the room.

We walked to Abby’s office and everyone crowded into it.

“How’d it go,” she asked.

“She’s out of the memory/nightmare,” I replied. “She was able to understand what we told her and used body language to convey her response.”

“That’s a good thing,” she said. “It means the episode is past and she’ll start to recover.”

“I got the feeling she doesn’t want to recover.”

“Why do you say that?”

“When I told her that she needed to shift, her answer was to shake her head and sat in a corner not looking at us,” Indra replied. “She even refuses to talk. I tried to speak to her telepathically, but she’s still blocking. She knows that if she starts talking that way, it’ll open her up to Lexa’s command.”

“Thus allowing Lexa to make her shift,” Abby replied.

“Exactly.”

“Do I need to put her back into a coma?”

“No,” Indra answered. “Since she made no effort to make any kind of aggressive move there’s no need. Just in case, though, I’ve left a guard with a quadruple dosage of tranq darts. They’ll use them if there’s a need to.”

Abby nodded, “I guess the only thing that can be done from here, is to keep trying. What got her to respond anyway?”

“We told her about what’s been happening to Lincoln. The forced guard duty and what happened during Clarke’s encounter with him the other day,” I replied. “Also told her the reason why she was scratching behind her ear. She responded pretty well to that tidbit.”

“My suggestion would be to talk to her like that. Tell her about what happened the day before. Funny anecdotes. Things of that nature. Maybe keeping her in the loop will be beneficial.”

“Well, it certainly won’t hurt,” I said. “We’ll keep the visits to only on or two of us, so we don’t overwhelm her.”

“Sounds like you’ve got yourself a plan.”

“Now, it’s back to the world of training and reports,” Indra said and we all groaned in unison, even Clarke.

We said our goodbyes and like good little trainees, followed Indra back to the compound.